Is There Ever a Good Time to Taper?

[Nikki]

I had posted this on my own thread. I don't really think there is an optimum time to taper or drop a dose. Unless you are clairvoyant.

 

I was sharing that I did make my second drop, and lo and behold my elderly Mother began another Drama episode. This is her personality. Been like this forever... It lasted 4 days.

 

Unfortunately this brings up many childhood issues, and the end result is that I feel unmanageable. The manageability for myself is anger, guilt, sadness and alot of crying.

 

Eventually it passes until the next time. The guilt for being angry is a killer for me. I don't yell at her. I try to remain calm, but it does come across.

 

During tapers/drops in dose life crops up with unexpected bills, dentists, appliances needing replacement, work worries, etc. You know what I mean. These things during a taper tap into the Neuro-emotion stuff which stinks.

 

We never know what life is going to bring, which is why I really don't think there really is an ideal time to taper. Stuff happens.

 

I did ask this question on my thread: Am I the only person on this site who has family of origin drama or bad memories???????

 

Barb, Areyouthere had me laughing out loud with their responses. Maybe this is where the anxiety all began. You know, the scene of the crime

 

Woke up yesterday and today unwell. Will most likely go back up in dose to get a hold on myself.

 

Hugs

[strawberry17]

Can relate to the question about is there a good time to taper, I'm always looking for the optimum time to reduce and so does my husband because we don't want emotionals kicking in when we've got other things going on in life like say money issues, but ultimately there isn't always a good time because like you say, you can choose the optimum day and then, ta dah!! **** happens a few days later!!

I am thinking about my next reduction right now, and the last one has been a bit rough, the first really rough one I've had the whole time I've been tapering, and now, today, my husband has got a suspected deep vein thrombosis out of the blue and has a scan tomorrow. That's life.

 

I love your "family of origin ishoos". I think we all kind of have these. I daren't talk about my family on t'internet though! I know my anxieties originate from childhood/school experiences.

[peggy]

i also wonder if maybe when we haven't tapered, issues pop up and we don't notice them because we are 'stable' It's sort of like waiting for the right time to have a baby. If you try and have everything 'just right' you may never get there. We are human and our issues make up the fabric of our life.

 

For me, I am trying to identify triggers and notice my unhelpful responses, because it is actually usually my responses that are damaging rather than the actual event.

[Nikki]

Strawberry why was the last drop the toughest? What dose are you at and did the bad spell pass? Sorry about your husband. Good news is you caught it and it can be treated...

 

Peggy...yep we all have triggers, and I am better now at catching my response. Some of these triggers go very deep and very far back.

 

Thank goodness we have all been better parents to our children. We took what we learned and made a decision not to do whatever is was to our kids.

 

The post about Neuro-emotions is so true during a taper. I think we all try to pick the 'ideal' time to taper, but it never seems to arrive.

 

When I was tapering Lexapro I went from October thru January holding at 15mgs. for the Holidays. Some other stuff cropped up. Boy, I was so glad I stayed put for that season

 

Holidays are a good time to HOLD or STAY PUT.

 

Hugs

[strawberry17]

My taper has been plain sailing all the way, withdrawals fairly transient. This time, for some reason I can't seem to shift the early morning anxiety, it does go through the morning thank goodness, maybe it is just how I am and nothing to do with withdrawal. I also went through 2/3 weeks of mild depression, that has gone, but I just felt waves of sadness, I think that bit was withdrawal.

[alexjuice]

In my opinion there is never a good time to taper, sadly. Unless your taper is a breezy one, at some point no matter when you start you will probably feel like you picked the absolute worst time to taper.

 

A complicating factor, in my case, was i did not realize all the ways the antidepressants were affecting me until I was off of them. This is something that is discussed often and in retrospect really influenced my decision making.

 

In the end, unless there is a legitimate reason to postpone, I think the best time to start a taper is as soon as you can.

 

I think we all, people, tend to get caught up in "I'll do _blank_ in the future when..." type of thinking too often. Stressors will always be present. And that's another advantage of tapering generally. As stressors affect us, we can slow down or pause the taper.

[Altostrata]

There's never an ideal time to taper, but if you do it slowly and systematically, you can always hold if life gets choppy.

[Rhiannon]

A complicating factor, in my case, was i did not realize all the ways the antidepressants were affecting me until I was off of them. This is something that is discussed often and in retrospect really influenced my decision making.

 

This comes up a lot. I've seen it a lot with benzos in particular. People taking large doses of benzos have a hard time thinking clearly and absorbing information and that really affects how they approach their taper. It's quite frustrating.

 

This may not be what you meant, above, but it's an issue that comes up for me a lot--how the drugs and even the withdrawal symptoms affect a person's ability to think clearly, make good judgments, and taper wisely.

[Rhiannon]

There's never an ideal time to taper, but if you do it slowly and systematically, you can always hold if life gets choppy.

 

Yeppers. That's sure been the key for me.

[npanth]

I've noticed that it's possible to stay at a certain dosage for too long, too. I've had a couple times where I wanted to stay at a dose. I didn't feel overt symptoms, but I felt "fragile" as if some tipping point would be triggered if I did another taper. This was at the 2 month point of a dose. After feeling like that for a while, I decided to go ahead and taper, fearing that I was reaching a point of inertia. The next taper went fairly smoothly, and the fragile feeling started to dissipate. It's a delicate balance between tapering too fast and tapering too slow, I think. Once we start going down in dose, it becomes very hard to tell the difference between withdrawal symptoms and drug related symptoms.

[Nikki]

npanth I never thought about staying at a dose for too long. Probably because I am always in such a hurry, so I never did. Except once I stayed at 15mgs. Lexapro for a few months to get thru the Holidays at that time.

 

HUgs

[strawberry17]

I'm the opposite Nikki, I've held a dose for months LOL I think partly because I've been stung so many times before I've gone to the opposite extreme now, and also I have a husband whose been through all of it with me and holds me back, sometimes we argue about it because I want to make the next cut and he wants me to hold a bit longer.

[Becca]

"In my opinion there is never a good time to taper." That, in a nutshell sums up why I stayed on so long. That is why the accidental w/d I experienced due to generic switch (see my intro. story)was an involuntary, but necessary reminder of how at the mercy of this drug I was.Now I am committed to getting off it.Otherwise, I might have stayed with the status quo forever. The involuntary nature of that w/d due to the generic switch highlights how hard it it to make the voluntary decision to taper (finding a good time to do it). Knowing how excruciating the w/d is--especially when done too fast, it was always at the back of my mind that something could happen (like a natural disaster, or they stop making the drug) that would make me unable to obtain the drug and force sudden w/d. It reminds me of when I worked at a methadone clinic and I met heroin addicts who were only able to detox when they were in jail. I want to take more control of my life than that.

[dalsaan]

There's never a great time to taper but some times are better than others. I once dropped my dose when I had PMS really bad. This coincided with a full moon and increased work stress. This was not the best week of my life! So I have learnt to go gentle with myself and time my drops a bit better.

[bubbles]

Dalsaan, I agree. There may not be a fantastic time to taper, but there are certainly bad times. I picked a predictably bad time... Oh well.

B